Disasters Don’t Have to End in Dystopias

For my latest podcast, I read my 2017 Wired op-ed, Disasters Don’t Have to End in Dystopias, a discussion of the themes in my novel Walkaway.

The thesis is that our estimations of probability of danger are unduly influenced by our ability to vividly imagine that danger (this is called the “availability heuristic”), so stories about human barbarism during crises inspires people to expect — and perform — that barbarism. The answer is to tell stories that reflect the reality of crises: that...